Equipment
by Thaumarian
Summary: For a school that deals with the breaking apart of the laws of physics, their inability to use normal pens escapes her. She supposes it couldn't hurt to make a little money out of introducing some normality to the place.
1. Chapter 1

She had spent the past few years perfecting her craft, and it had finally expanded into a business. She had gotten hold of a rather fetching briefcase over the summer, as her old satchel could no longer hold all her equipment- besides, she felt it looked a little more 'professional'. Not that her bright yellow beanie hat screamed 'professional' as well, but she could try and make adjustments to her professionalism where they were needed.

They were a month into the new year of Hogwarts, and she was already down to the last few pieces of some equipment- she had already made a list and sent it off(by email, of course) to a rather lovely stationary depot in Inverness that had over the years become accustomed to these odd requests that they would sometimes get for deliveries to a middle-of-nowhere village that bordered a castle ruin and seemed to have a rather large owl population. The poor deliverymen had become all too used to handing over large boxes in the dead of night in the middle of a deserted village to a young girl in a yellow beanie who seemed able to heft the boxes with no effort at all.

Well, she kept her wand hidden up her sleeve while she lifted them. They didn't need to know her actual upper body strength was less than the average kitten.

In any case, demand had been higher than ever this year. From lovers looking for a means of secret communication with one another(owl notes are a little bit...conspicious, and she had just perfected her charms on technology that kept them working) to stressed Arithmancy students struggling to keep up with the demands of having to add up twenty different numbers in their head- well, she sold it all.

And here comes another customer, she reckoned to herself, as the door banged on her converted broom closet. She shifted her legs off of the table, adjusted her beanie, and hefted her briefcase onto the table before speaking.

"Open for business!" She yelled at the door. The handle turned, the door opened. Her expression went from businesslike to amused.

"You're joking."

The student attempted to look above the situation, which was difficult to manage in a broom closet. He sniffed as haughtily as possible.

"Yes, yes, I am aware of the situation's apparent hilarity. Can we keep this transaction...anonymous?"

She grinned, raising one eyebrow.

"Off the books? You've got to close the door behind you first, you're letting a draught in."

He attempted not to look abashed as he primly and quietly closed the door behind him, before slowly sitting opposite the girl. He attempted to ignore the amused look on her face as she began.

"So. You want to buy something from me."

He gave her his best '_of course I bloody am why else would I be here' _look. It was only met with a bigger smirk, and he gave up.

"Yes."

Her smirk grew to almost reach the ends of her face.

"You want to buy some Muggle stuff. You. One of the most pureblood purebloods in the school. Salazar Slytherin's lovechild wants to get his hands on some Muggle equipment."

As the teenager wearing the green-and-silver robes started to look faintly frustrated, and shifted uncomfortably as if to get up, she realised she had to dial back her amusement and surprise into a more impartial, businesslike manner. She leant back in her faux-leather spinny chair with an air of confidence and waved one hand in the air lazily.

"I can get why you'd want to be anonymous, sure, that's fine. I'll put it in my PDA instead, though, don't think just because you're staying off-record on paper it means you aren't digitally recorded." He looked faintly confused at this statement, and with a realisation the guy had no idea what a PDA was, she ploughed on. "Anyway. You wanted something?"

He squirmed slightly in his chair, looking embarrassed. Feeling classically Hufflepuff, she attempted to make him feel more comfortable. "Hey, mate, I've heard it all. Seriously, even sexual shit. Especially sexual shit." She wished she was lying at this point, but some people don't have boundaries in asking for equipment. She wasn't a sex shop.

Looking vaguely placated but slightly intimidated at the idea of people asking for such products, he spit it out.

"Well, ah, I heard that if one was taking Astronomy classes, there's a possibility-"

"That one could potentially bloody pass if one got some graph paper and some mechanical pencils? Yes, yes one can." She was messing around with him, she knew, but hey- it isn't every day you get a customer who would probably be disowned if they were discovered here with her. Besides, Hufflepuff doesn't always mean 'perenially nice', she enjoyed a little amusement once in a while.

He looked up at her with a mixture of desperation and frustration. She laughed lightly, unclipped the clasps of her briefcase and spun it around for demonstration as she opened it up. Before them both lay a multitude of phones, pens, pencils, calculators, erasers- essentially everything the average Muggle would own. She selected a wad of graph paper, a couple of simple mechanical pencils and a little white chunk of an eraser and set them down on the table.

"This is my starter pack, but seeing as it's fifth year and we're already a month in, I'll throw in a planisphere as well- you'll need one, trust me." She was being too nice again, but she was getting a new delivery in soon, and even bigoted guys like him needed to pass their OWLs. She picked up a slim circular plastic object and tossed it on the table as well. He picked it up and inspected it, eyes squinting in confusion. She revelled in his lack of knowledge of Muggle technology for a few seconds before relenting.

"It's like an advanced astrolabe, mate. Align the disks and you get the horizon you should have overhead. Match the chart to the horizon and all that. Seriously, it's nothing new, they started out in the 11th Century, but hey, magic societies get intimidated by anything preceding the wheel, so." She finished rambling with a wave of her hand. His eyes had widened into comprehension and awe, and she revelled in this expression even more than his confused one.

"So." He looked up. "How much do I owe you?"

"Eleven Sickles."

He gaped, looked down at the kit, then back at her. "_Eleven?!_"

"The more you look at me like that, the higher the price shall go."

"But that's insane! For-"

"For equipment that you literally at this point _cannot purchase anywhere els_e, unless you want to head off into London yourself and try to buy said equipment with currency _you don't know how to convert into_. Besides, aren't your family one of the richest around?"

He stared in disbelief. He sighed and reached into his robe pockets.

"You should have been a Slytherin with that sort of cunning."

"I'll take that as a compliment, mate, but Hufflepuffs have the best parties."

* * *

**I don't know who these kids are, but I think there's a lot of tension in the air here. Maybe they should kiss to relieve said tension.****  
**

**In any case. The idea wasn't mine, it can be attributed to a tumblr user who suggested that muggleborns would go around illicitly trading stationary to try and help students pass their classes. I liked the idea and couldn't resist a little fic-writing/character making-up.**

**Unfortunately for you all I'm not a very good writer, but I hoped you liked the concept at any rate. :) Reviews would be appreciated if I made any errors/there are any improvements that could be made/you want to read more of these kids. I liked writing them, maybe more might be written regardless.**


	2. Chapter 2

He had attempted to not let this affect his good record.

He never consorted with Mudblood scum. Never. He was a pureblood. He was a Slytherin. He took pride in his blood's purity, and he made sure everyone else knew just how pure said blood was.

But unfortunately, consort with Mudblood scum he did. As much as he took pride in being one of the purest wizards in Hogwarts, he also needed to pass Astronomy- and the wizarding world being small enough that the demand for highly qualified students had brought unimaginable stress to the educational system had brought him to the conclusion of his aforementioned consorting.

This was how he explained it to himself, as he flipped his mechanical pencil from hand to hand. It was merely politics. Taking advantage of a Mudblood to further his own ambitions.

Ah, but it hadn't been 'taking advantage', had it? It had been a business transaction.

A completely unfair business transaction in which the filthy girl had blatantly ripped him off. He glared down at the extortionately priced pencil. Really, he could have bought six high-quality quills for the same price as this pencil.

He decided to vent his frustration in a prim and proper manner as he sat in the Astronomy Tower lecture room- in a manner perfectly befitting a wronged member of pureblood society. He kicked the chair in front of him viciously, pouting as he did so.

As the professor droned on, the owner of the chair- some Hufflepuff, he hadn't bothered to learn which one- turned around, head coming out from behind the high-backed wooden chair.

Oh _no._ Anyone but _her._

She grinned, her yellow beanie flopping sideways with her head's movements. She raised one eyebrow and whispered to him with her devil-may-care smirk.

"Aren't you a little old for the whole kicking chair legs routine?" He noticed as she spoke that the Mudblood scum was wearing makeup. Not much, not pasted onto her skin with abandon- just a little accentuation to her lips, her eyes. He refused to acknowledge to himself he had noticed it.

He narrowed his eyes, eyes flicking to his associate on his right. The boy hadn't noticed her yet. Eyes flicking back to the girl, he kept the expression as dark and glowering as possible, with only a minimum of pouting.

"It isn't your business what I do, Mudblood." He hissed back in retort, only just managing to check himself and stop his arms folding childishly.

Her lips fell from the smirk, and it took all of his willpower to pretend he wasn't a little bit guilty for that comment. She observed him silently, brown eyes now fading from a confident amusement to a more neutral expression. Then she muttered back a response.

"Two can play at that game, you bigoted little bastard." She said, eyes narrowing dangerously. Then she straightened, and her head disappeared behind the back of her chair again.

He frowned, wondering what she had meant, and what she was going to do. But no retribution came for the rest of the lesson, and he presumed she had backed out of it. She was a Hufflepuff, after all.

But he realised what she had done when he started his Arithmancy lesson.

* * *

Pencils were needed in Arithmancy, but apparently sharpening items were not. As a result, mechanical pencils were the gold standard for anyone who didn't know how to use their wand to cut objects, or hadn't hidden a knife on their person (which, worryingly enough, was actually done by many students- the stress of trying to pass the class was actually that much). He had found the lessons unbelievably easier when he actually come to purchase a mechanical pencil a month into the new year- and although he got odd looks from all those who knew the origins of these pencils, he had considered it little sacrifice for actually being able to function in Arithmancy.

But today his pencil lead was pink.

He had spent the first ten minutes of the lesson scribbling on various items and ascertaining that yes, it was the pencil lead itself that had changed. He had spent the next five minutes realising how far behind those wasted ten minutes had left him, and attempting to live with the unrelenting _pink_.

He spent the rest of the lesson trying to turn the lead back to its normal colour. He couldn't live with this pink. He just couldn't. He knew why she had done it- because pink was, first and foremost, a feminine colour. His mother and his sister wore the colour incessantly- he knew it was the colour of women.

She was attempting to degrade him by forcing him to use a colour he associated with another group of people.

That clever little Mudblood.

And she seemed to be being clever in another respect- because whatever he tried, the colour wasn't shifting. The lead was pink now. It wasn't charmed, it wasn't transfigured- the pencil lead seemed completely untampered with. Even 'Finite Incantatem' didn't seem to work.

She had done something to it and he couldn't stop it from happening. That Mudblood girl. That Mudblood _Hufflepuff girl_. He was superior in every way and she was beating him. This wasn't right. This simply wasn't right.

He huffed, put down the pencil.

It started to move.

The pencil picked itself up, hovering in mid-air for a few seconds. His eyes opened wider in surprise as he watched the pencil teeter above his ruined pink-covered parchment.

Then it lowered to the parchment, wrote a single line in messy looping script, and dropped to the desk again.

He waited for a few seconds more, to ensure it wouldn't jump up and start writing again. When it didn't, he pulled the parchment towards him, scanning the almost illegible line the nonexistent writer had scratched into his parchment.

_Apologise and this will stop._

He considered this for the rest of his half-listened-to Arithmancy lecture. He could apologise. After all, it was only a petty argument arising from his kicking a chair leg- he could take the higher moral ground than the Mudblood.

But on the other hand, this was a _Hufflepuff_, and he was a _Slytherin_. He couldn't- _wouldn't_ be beaten by her.

He made his decision.

* * *

It was the end of today's lessons. Most people were trudging tiredly back to their dormitories at this time, discussing with fervour the amount of homework they had recieved or how horrible a certain teacher was.

He was instead knocking on the door of a broom cupboard.

"Open for business!" Came a bored tone from the other side of the door- he slowly entered. The beanie-clad girl raised one eyebrow at him before dropping her gaze to her garishly painted nails.

"Come to do the right thing?" She questioned boredly.

"Yes, I am." He replied evenly. Before she could give him any sort of superioric look, however, he continued. "I did nothing wrong, and will not apologise for any actions I made. Furthermore, your petty attempts to make me apologise were ridiculously bad."

If her lips twitched downwards slightly, neither made any acknowledgement of it. But then they twitched up again.

"Didn't figure out how to fix it, huh."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Does it matter?"

She grinned, albeit rather more fakely than the grin he had recieved this morning. "Oh, not at all. But if that attempt was so 'petty', well then- I'll just have to step up my game."

"Oh will you now."

"Yes, I will."

"And you think I can't play at this game too."

She leant forward on her desk, eyes narrowing and grin still frozen to her face.

"Bring it on, you little dick."

He pivoted sharply and left the room. The door was slammed shut by magical means behind him.

* * *

The first indication she got that he was taking his intentions seriously was when the next morning at breakfast her beanie turned green.

It was a simple charm, and she removed it after around thirty seconds- her friends sitting opposite had been all too happy to inform her of the sudden beanie colour change. She replaced the beanie on her head again after having taken the charm away.

Whereupon her friends informed her again of its change from garish yellow to green and silver once more.

She ripped the beanie from her head, removed the charm again, and this time looked up and across to the Slytherin table. Snickers erupted from the breakfasting green-and-silver robed teenagers as she sent her best glare to the offending Slytherin, who was refusing to so much as acknowledge that anything had happened, primly consuming his breakfast.

She replaced it on her head again, and once more the yellow switched to green. This time she left it, despite her friends reminding her of it as laughter rippled outward from the table decorated with snake banners. Instead, she jammed a hand into her robe pockets and soundlessly moved her wand.

She didn't look up from her breakfast, but she was well aware that his robe trimmings had just shifted from their typical colours to a far more yellow look- she had even been adventurous and changed the breast pocket badge from the green-and-silver snake to the yellow-and-black badger.

A few Hufflepuffs muttered to each other. A few fingers were pointed. Suddenly there was laughter from her table as the Slytherins notified him of his sudden colour change, and the two tables became enraptured in what would happen next.

She had been expecting her robe trimmings to change colour, but she didn't fight it. She had to concentrate a little to keep her next spell from having to be enunciated; she struggled to keep her face calm and fight the urge to look up as she heard the uproar of laughter from her table as a plush toy that just so happened to be black and white (and life-size) materialised on top of his head.

She would have been lying if she had said she hadn't been expecting a snake in retaliation. She would have been lying even more if she had said she was expecting a real one.

She yelped and jumped up from the bench as a rather large grass snake started coiling around her head and neck- she pulled it off and flung it to the ground. By this point, all four house tables seemed to be more than a little interested in this conflict.

She remained there, glaring at the snake, for a few seconds as uproarious laughter came from Slytherin's table.

Then she had an idea.

She hadn't been educated by non-magical schools for a while, but she had watched enough documentaries between that time and this to know one thing.

Badgers eat snakes.

She pointed her wand just to the left of the snake and muttered something under her breath. It, like the snake, was a mere materialisation and not a real creature- but it would last long enough to prove a point.

The badger seemed faintly bemused at its sudden coming into existence, but confusion gave way to instinct as the coiling, oversized grass snake came into its line of sight.

It walked forward, grabbed it by the head with its jaws. An audible crunch filled the suddenly silent hall as they watched, enthralled, by the sudden development. A few younger years made disgusted noises at this show of nature at its purest.

Then the Hufflepuff table screamed with laughter again. She refused to look up at the silent Slytherin table, but as the badger faded away with a flick of her wand, so did the snake. It seemed this round was over.

She calmly sat down back at the Hufflepuff table, acting like nothing had happened at all. Not for the first time, she was grateful that teachers weren't present during breakfast. All around her came laughs and furious mutters- her newfound rivalry with the Slytherin seemed to be now universally known.

Good. When she won, everyone could know how a 'Mudblood' Hufflepuff could easily beat the pureblooded bigots of Slytherin.

* * *

**Okay, so I liked them a little too much and couldn't leave this story lie. There's at least one more chapter to be taken from this, I think- although I think I need to return a little bit to the overall original plot of this story.**

**Oh well. I enjoyed writing this. I hope you enjoyed reading it. :) Please do tell me if there's any issues/errors/plotholes/good things about this. **


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